Shahla Lajmorak Rameh chari; Abdol Majid Mahdavi Damghani; Hooman Liaghati
Abstract
IntroductionWheat is one of the most important crops used in the country and forms the basis of food security of Iranians. Wheat cultivation in Iran has a long history over 8,000 years. On the other hand, with the growth of the population of countries, the issue of food security has become more important ...
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IntroductionWheat is one of the most important crops used in the country and forms the basis of food security of Iranians. Wheat cultivation in Iran has a long history over 8,000 years. On the other hand, with the growth of the population of countries, the issue of food security has become more important every day to the extent that it has become one of the most important issues of the country and efforts are being made to achieve self-sufficiency in the production of this strategic crop. The area under cultivation has always been one of the most important factors limiting production in the world, and today in all countries, officials and researchers have paid attention to this issue in order to increase production without relying on increasing the area under cultivation. The history of compression of cultivation and the consequences of green agriculture in the form of conventional agriculture show that the way to supply crop production is not through this, inevitably the importance of studying the agricultural history of each country becomes more important every day which by analyzing events find the reason for the success or failure of programs over time.Materials and MethodsTherefore, a study has been conducted in the form of a time series analysis study and quantitative content study to analysis and examine changes in area under cultivation, wheat production and population changes in a period of 60 years. To do this, the Mini-tab software has been used.Results and DiscussionThe results of the study show the linear population growth from 1961 to 2020. During the same period, the country's total wheat production has increased from 3.5 million tons per hectare to 11.7 million tons per hectare, which shows a growth of 234 percent in this sector. The area under wheat cultivation in these years has had less changes compared to the amount of production and population growth and has increased from 4.5 million hectares in 1961 to 6.4 million hectares in 2020.ConclusionIt seems that the events of 1961 to 1971 in the social structure and industrialization of the country, changes between the two revolutions in 1971 to 1981, the occurrence of imposed war in 1981 to 1991 are all of special importance in changing the agriculture of Iran. This phenomenon is called social metabolism, which reflects the effects that the natural environment (agroecosystem) receives from its social environment, and in contrast to the effects that changes in the structure and function of agroecosystems on the availability of food in society.
Maryam Akbarpoor; Hadi Veisi; Abdolmajid Mahdavi Damghani; Mohammadreza Nazari
Abstract
Introduction: Localization of the food system has become in line with sustainable agriculture for many reasons including ecological advantages, economic benefits, and social considerations. Yet the question is that to what extent food can be locally produced. To answer this question, the concept of ...
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Introduction: Localization of the food system has become in line with sustainable agriculture for many reasons including ecological advantages, economic benefits, and social considerations. Yet the question is that to what extent food can be locally produced. To answer this question, the concept of foodshed can be considered. The concept provides a framework for analyzing local food production at any scale. The foodshed is a land that can supply all or parts of a given population's nutritional needs within a given geographical area. So far, no foodshed study has been conducted in Iran, so this study proposed a model to study foodsheds. By taking a sustainable food system into account, the current research examined the concept of foodshed, the status of food production and consumption in Tehran Province, and the capacity of this province to meet its nutritional needs. Material and methods: The model was used in Tehran Province using a unit named "plant equivalent" to calculate and compare the amount of food produced in the study area and the nutritional requirement of the province’s population. Production of each crop (based on the plant equivalent unit) in each region was calculated by multiplying the crop cultivation land area in the crop yield. The amount of need for each plant equivalent unit in each region was calculated by multiplying the population of that area in the weight of food that is needed of a person in a year. Then, using self-sufficiency formulas, we estimated how much of the population's needs are being supported by the existing production. To calculate self-sufficiency, a concept known as threshold production was used. Calculation of threshold production was done with Matlab using conditional programming and coding. Excel, Matlab, and GIS were used in this research. Results and discussion: One of the most important achievements of the present study was the foodshed assessment of Tehran Province considering its increasing population and providing food security in this province. In the present study, which was carried out on a provincial scale, self-sufficiency in providing the desired food basket for the population of Tehran Province was 22% and the highest and lowest self-sufficiency was estimated in Pishva and Tehran counties, respectively. Self-sufficiency percent in producing crops to provide the desired food basket in Tehran Province was higher in fodder corn (100%) (self-sufficient), vegetables (79%), fruits (56%), barley straw (53%), wheat straw (45%), barley grain (16%), wheat bran (8%), wheat grain (5%), forage crops except corn (4%), rapeseed meal (0/1%), rapeseed (0/06%), respectively. However, in legumes, rice hull, root, pulp, and molasses of sugar beet, corn, and soybean meal self-sufficiency percent was estimated zero percent, meaning non-self-sufficient or total dependence. Conclusion: The results of this study indicated that the percentage of foodshed self-sufficiency in providing the desired food basket for the population of Tehran Province was 22%. Although localization has benefits, it seems that considering the small area and the overcapacity population of Tehran Province and the environmental issues (water scarcity and soil erosion), the boundaries of Tehran Province foodshed should be broadened and the foodshed radius must be increased.
Reyhaneh Sadat Ghazi Marashi; Omid Noori; Reza Deihimfard; Amir Salemi
Volume 15, Issue 4 , January 2018, , Pages 113-124
Abstract
Introduction:
Urbanization and population growth, in addition to its rapid development across the world, has caused a major demand for the food security and the self-sufficiency in terms of food production in many cities. According to the aforementioned circumstances, the activities in the basis of ...
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Introduction:
Urbanization and population growth, in addition to its rapid development across the world, has caused a major demand for the food security and the self-sufficiency in terms of food production in many cities. According to the aforementioned circumstances, the activities in the basis of urban agriculture with different traditional methods (e.g. planting on the ground surface with a soil bedding) or the modern ones (e.g. rooftop gardening with hydroponic cultivation methods) have been emerged and numerous studies regarding these methods have been accomplished. Likewise, a large number of farms in the urban areas came into existence worldwide. Nonetheless, there are yet various challenges to develop this type of agriculture. Moreover, only few numbers of studies were carried out to monitor the health and hygiene condition of the food productions grown in such places, especially in terms of air pollutants accumulation. The objective of this research was to study the hygiene of the plants cultivated in urban environment (rooftops and courtyards), and to determine the accumulation rates of pollutants in the eggplant fruit (Solanum Melongena var. depressum (L.)) and bell peppers (Capsicum fruitescens var. grossum (Mill.)).
Materials and methods:
Two types of vegetables; bell pepper and eggplant were cultivated in the rooftop and courtyard of a five story building in the 7th district of Tehran. The seeds were planted on the basis of a completely randomized design system using six times repetitions. Besides, in order to compare the hygiene of these fruits with those of the fruits cultivated in the countryside, similar samples of the same products were used in the farms located in the environs of Varamin and Karaj. Densities of heavy metals such as molybdenum, chrome, copper and manganese ( Mn, Mo, Cr and Cu) included in the fruits of belle pepper and eggplants cultivated in the urban areas of Tehran were compares with their amounts in the fruits cultivated in the farms located outside of the towns. Additionally, the amounts of heavy metals Lead and Cadmium (Cd, Pb) in the samples related to the city of Tehran were compared to the European Union Standards and the Iranian National Standard. The sample digestion was carried out using Microwave, and in order to analyse and measure the results, the device of ICP-MS was used. Data was analysed by the SAS and Microsoft Excel software and the means comparison was done through standard error.
Results and discussion:
The resulted data demonstrate that the densities of heavy metals in the most of the fruits grown in city showed significantly higher numbers in the range of 5% than those of plants grown in countryside, except the contents of chrome in eggplant which is higher in the samples of the farms located in the countryside than those of both urban areas. Moreover, the heavy metal pollutants of copper in both eggplant and bell pepper from the farms located in countryside were higher than the samples of the rooftop. The chrome density in the eggplants cultivated in farmland was 1.56 times more than that of courtyard, and 1.58 times more than that of rooftop. Densities of copper in the eggplant and bell pepper of countryside farm are respectively 1.22 and 1.24 times more than the samples of rooftop. Furthermore, except lead contents (Pb) being observed at three different levels 0.18, 0.63 and 0.14 milligrams per one kilogram of dry weight (mg/kgDW) in some samples, respectively for rooftop eggplants, rooftop bell peppers and bell peppers of courtyard, which showed significant variances to the permissible limits (in the range of 5%), other samples indicated acceptable amounts of lead and cadmium with respect to the European Union Standard and Iranian National Standard (under the limits of 5%).
Conclusion:
In general it can be concluded that all the samples cultivated in the urban areas of 7th district of the city of Tehran were healthy in terms of allowable amounts of Cadmium as an heavy metal. These density ratios fully complied with international standards, and were similar to those of the samples cultivated in the countryside. In contrast, most of the aforementioned samples contained the impermissible amounts of lead heavy metal. Likewise, the densities of other heavy metals included in products of urban farms were much higher than those of the city exteriors. As a matter of fact, this difference might be resulted from the effects of heavy traffic flow, geographic position and the unsuitable climate conditions on the air quality of urbanized areas.
